4 ms·

Given the prior expectation of approximately zero, the posterior remains approximately zero. Fantastical claims require durable evidence that can be repeated by

Given the prior expectation of approximately zero, the posterior remains approximately zero. Fantastical claims require durable evidence that can be repeated by different people at different times in different places.

Alex3917 16y ago
There was actually prior expectation. To quote the article: "Bem was unable to find any fatal flaw in Honorton’s work. He became more and more interested in extending his research focus from personality and social psychology to psi research. In 1994, Bem and Honorton co-authored a landmark article on psi in the mainstream psychology journal Psychological Bulletin. The article described the results of a thorough statistical meta-analysis of eleven ganzfeld studies. (A meta-analysis involves combining data from a series of similar experiments conducted over a period of time, to come to an overall conclusion.) The result of the meta-analysis was striking: subjects obtained overall target “hit” rates of approximately 35 percent, far above the 25 percent that chance performance would predict."
- carbocation 16y ago
  Based on economics, and the fact that nobody is exploiting this for massive gains, I'd say that the prior expectation for this being anything but an error or a fraud is much lower than you seem to be implying.
  - Alex3917 16y ago
    Well how exactly would you exploit being able to see porn from the future 53% of the time? My understanding is that there is a ton of military research also indicating a weak psi effect, as seen in The Men Who Stare At Goats, but I don't think they've found any use for it. I'm not a true believer by any means, but I don't think it's especially unreasonable for there to be some sort of weak psi effect either. You should skim over a copy of Stan Grof's book When The Impossible Happens. Most of the chapters aren't at all convincing, but there are a few things that jump out as being kind of interesting. At the very least reading stuff like that helps one to develop a more noetic understanding of the history of thought.
    - carbocation 16y ago
      From the perspective of information, the bits that you have decoded into pornography could be decoded differently into another coherent image. Therefore, the fact that the particular choice of decoder produced pornography should not much matter. The military uses for this are obvious; the military abandoned it because it could not produce results. And even if this only works for porn, that's fine. I could make a killing betting mathematicians and scientists that I could pick the porn > 50% of the time. What do you propose to be the propagator of information? Photons? If so, what is the receptor? If not, then what? Also, how is this information propagated from the source? If propagated through time, how does this reconcile with the forward-propagation in time of everything else that has ever been observed?
      - Alex3917 16y ago
        "The military abandoned it because it could not produce results." According to the movie, the military originally abandoned the research because of internal conflicts, and they have in fact since resumed research again. Not sure what the veracity of this is, but they stated it as being a true fact at the end of the film. "What do you propose to be the propagator of information?" Terence McKenna once said, "Not only is reality stranger than we suppose, it's stranger than we can suppose." Betting on current scientific paradigms as accurately portraying reality is a suckers bet every time. I have no idea where the information would come from, though presumably it would come from the same place that consciousness comes from. The reason HN is mostly logical positivists is because it's dominated by engineers and people with engineer-like personalities, and that's what most engineers think science advocates. (Even though most scientists themselves don't believe this, and post modern philosophy makes pretty short work of it.)
        carbocation 16y ago
        The records show that this was transferred to the CIA in 1995 and discontinued. If they secretly continued it, they sure did a great job in the run-up to 9/11. If these guys are open with their data, it will be rather straightforward to identify the error that they committed that led to these results. If not, a few other people will try to replicate their results and fail. At least some things in their field of study are always consistent. Also, I'm a scientist, not an engineer. Oh, also, let's be clear here. If what these fellows propose is true, then they will have simultaneously discovered both of the following: 1) Reverse causality 2) Evidence for biological receptors for the mediator of reverse causality It's basically hilarious, except for the fact that the money that funds this could be spent more productively on literally anything else. In general, parapsychology consists of the practice of accidentally or willfully misunderstanding the scientific method.
- powera 16y ago
  I'm sorry, two "scientific" studies in 17 years don't make prior expectation.
  - carbocation 16y ago
    More like two positive studies out of thousands that were probably conducted but not reported. The file drawer problem runs deep in these crowds.

Alex3917 16y ago

There was actually prior expectation. To quote the article: "Bem was unable to find any fatal flaw in Honorton’s work. He became more and more interested in extending his research focus from personality and social psychology to psi research. In 1994, Bem and Honorton co-authored a landmark article on psi in the mainstream psychology journal Psychological Bulletin. The article described the results of a thorough statistical meta-analysis of eleven ganzfeld studies. (A meta-analysis involves combining data from a series of similar experiments conducted over a period of time, to come to an overall conclusion.) The result of the meta-analysis was striking: subjects obtained overall target “hit” rates of approximately 35 percent, far above the 25 percent that chance performance would predict."

carbocation 16y ago
Based on economics, and the fact that nobody is exploiting this for massive gains, I'd say that the prior expectation for this being anything but an error or a fraud is much lower than you seem to be implying.
- Alex3917 16y ago
  Well how exactly would you exploit being able to see porn from the future 53% of the time? My understanding is that there is a ton of military research also indicating a weak psi effect, as seen in The Men Who Stare At Goats, but I don't think they've found any use for it. I'm not a true believer by any means, but I don't think it's especially unreasonable for there to be some sort of weak psi effect either. You should skim over a copy of Stan Grof's book When The Impossible Happens. Most of the chapters aren't at all convincing, but there are a few things that jump out as being kind of interesting. At the very least reading stuff like that helps one to develop a more noetic understanding of the history of thought.
  - carbocation 16y ago
    From the perspective of information, the bits that you have decoded into pornography could be decoded differently into another coherent image. Therefore, the fact that the particular choice of decoder produced pornography should not much matter. The military uses for this are obvious; the military abandoned it because it could not produce results. And even if this only works for porn, that's fine. I could make a killing betting mathematicians and scientists that I could pick the porn > 50% of the time. What do you propose to be the propagator of information? Photons? If so, what is the receptor? If not, then what? Also, how is this information propagated from the source? If propagated through time, how does this reconcile with the forward-propagation in time of everything else that has ever been observed?
    - Alex3917 16y ago
      "The military abandoned it because it could not produce results." According to the movie, the military originally abandoned the research because of internal conflicts, and they have in fact since resumed research again. Not sure what the veracity of this is, but they stated it as being a true fact at the end of the film. "What do you propose to be the propagator of information?" Terence McKenna once said, "Not only is reality stranger than we suppose, it's stranger than we can suppose." Betting on current scientific paradigms as accurately portraying reality is a suckers bet every time. I have no idea where the information would come from, though presumably it would come from the same place that consciousness comes from. The reason HN is mostly logical positivists is because it's dominated by engineers and people with engineer-like personalities, and that's what most engineers think science advocates. (Even though most scientists themselves don't believe this, and post modern philosophy makes pretty short work of it.)
      - carbocation 16y ago
        The records show that this was transferred to the CIA in 1995 and discontinued. If they secretly continued it, they sure did a great job in the run-up to 9/11. If these guys are open with their data, it will be rather straightforward to identify the error that they committed that led to these results. If not, a few other people will try to replicate their results and fail. At least some things in their field of study are always consistent. Also, I'm a scientist, not an engineer. Oh, also, let's be clear here. If what these fellows propose is true, then they will have simultaneously discovered both of the following: 1) Reverse causality 2) Evidence for biological receptors for the mediator of reverse causality It's basically hilarious, except for the fact that the money that funds this could be spent more productively on literally anything else. In general, parapsychology consists of the practice of accidentally or willfully misunderstanding the scientific method.
powera 16y ago
I'm sorry, two "scientific" studies in 17 years don't make prior expectation.
- carbocation 16y ago
  More like two positive studies out of thousands that were probably conducted but not reported. The file drawer problem runs deep in these crowds.